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A Xanthomonas uridine 5′-monophosphate transferase inhibits plant immune kinases

Nature volume 485, pages 114–118 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Plant innate immunity is activated on the detection of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) at the cell surface, or of pathogen effector proteins inside the plant cell1,2,3,4. Together, PAMP-triggered immunity and effector-triggered immunity constitute powerful defences against various phytopathogens. Pathogenic bacteria inject a variety of effector proteins into the host cell to assist infection or propagation. A number of effector proteins have been shown to inhibit plant immunity5, but the biochemical basis remains unknown for the vast majority of these effectors. Here we show that the Xanthomonas campestris pathovar campestris type III effector AvrAC enhances virulence and inhibits plant immunity by specifically targeting Arabidopsis BIK1 and RIPK, two receptor-like cytoplasmic kinases known to mediate immune signalling6,7,8. AvrAC is a uridylyl transferase that adds uridine 5′-monophosphate to and conceals conserved phosphorylation sites in the activation loop of BIK1 and RIPK, reducing their kinase activity and consequently inhibiting downstream signalling.

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Figure 1: AvrAC inhibits plant immunity.
Figure 2: AvrAC targets BIK1 and inhibits early PTI signalling events.
Figure 3: AvrAC uridylylates BIK1 and RIPK.
Figure 4: AvrAC uridylyl transferase activity and BIK1 are required for AvrAC virulence in plants.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank J. Chai for sharing plasmids before publication, A. Bent for the XccB186 strain, S. Y. He and F. White for helpful comments. J.-M.Z. was supported by grants from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (2011CB100700; 2010CB835301). S.C. was supported by a grant from the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology (2010CB835204) C.H. was supported by Funds from Hainan University.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

    Feng Feng

  2. Graduate School at Shenzhen, Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, 518055, China

    Feng Feng & Chaozu He

  3. National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing, 102206, China

    Feng Feng, Fan Yang, Xiaogang Wu, Jie Zhang, She Chen & Jian-Min Zhou

  4. Hainan Key Laboratory for Sustainable Utilization of Tropical Bioresource, Hainan University, Haikou, Hainan 570228, China,

    Wei Rong & Chaozu He

  5. State Key Laboratory of Plant Genomics and National Center for Plant Gene Research, Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Jian-Min Zhou

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Contributions

S.C., C.H. and J.-M.Z. conceived and designed the experiments. F.F., F.Y., W.R., X.W. and J.Z. performed the experiments. F.F., F.Y., S.C., C.H. and J.-M.Z. analysed the data. F.F., S.C., C.H. and J.-M.Z. wrote the paper.

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Correspondence to Chaozu He or Jian-Min Zhou.

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Feng, F., Yang, F., Rong, W. et al. A Xanthomonas uridine 5′-monophosphate transferase inhibits plant immune kinases. Nature 485, 114–118 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10962

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